RHEMA UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

Was Operation Save America justified in confronting the RHEMA Ministerial Association over its ouster of a pro-life pastor?

Can any Christian conscientiously seek licensing and ordination from a denomination which prohibits pro-life witnessing?

Operation Save America held an outdoor “camp meeting” at RHEMA Bible Church on Friday, March 28th and during Sunday services on March 30th. The purpose of the visit was to rebuke RHEMA for “excommunicating” a RHEMA church which conducted public witnessing activities at the most notorious abortion mill in America.

RHEMA responded to notice of the visit by calling on the Broken Arrow police force which responded with everything they had. 25-30 police officers were on hand for the visit, including seven on bicycles and five posted on the roof of a building across the street from the RHEMA Bible Church auditorium.

Evidently some serious criminal activity was anticipated. Additionally a limestone line was burned into the berm the length of the RHEMA campus along Kenosha Street and police barricades posted around the borders of the campus replete with yellow tape (“Police line. Do not cross.”) The appearance of the RHEMA campus during the Operation Save America visit was identical to the protection afforded the Tulsa abortion mill (Reproductive Services at 6136 32nd Place East) during the Friday and Saturday witnessing activity at that location.

Thus, God’s church and the abortion mill responded identically to a witness for life!! Numerous RHEMA-ites were heard saying to the police: “Thank you for being here.” But how many said to the Operation Save America witnesses: “Thank you for being here to call us to account for our sin in forsaking the innocent blood”? Some, but not many.

RHEMA pastors are now forbidden from engaging in “any type of abortion-protest activities, such as prayer vigils outside clinics or churches, carrying of signs or placards, circulating abortion-related fliers or mailings, announcing of abortion-related protest events, or encouraging individuals to participate in abortion-related protests.” Letter from RHEMA attorney to Pastor Mark Holick (November, 2001).

RHEMA has turned its back on the victims of the abortion holocaust and decisively demanded cessation of all witnessing for the unborn outside the church walls on penalty of expulsion. Many churches are apathetic about the slaughter of the unborn or give only lip service to defending the innocent.

RHEMA has plowed new ground in the collaboration of American Christianity with the abortion holocaust by positively punishing a pastor who, moved by the Spirit and faithful to the Word, sought to love his neighbor as himself.

The reason? Love of money, prestige and the goods of this world. The limestone line emblazoned into the grass outside RHEMA represents the line of discrimination between the born and the unborn that defines Abortion America. RHEMA has chosen to line up with the born and their privileges and against the unborn and their helplessness. RHEMA has chosen to love first its own property, which no aborted baby will ever enjoy, rather than to identify with the common humanity of those who are the refuse of the sexual revolution.